“Am I to wish you happiness, Valerie?  Is that the trouble?”

“Certainly.  Please wish it for me always—­as I do for you—­and for everybody.”

But he continued to laugh, and the colour in her face persisted, annoying her intensely.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “I do not believe you can be hopelessly in love.”

“What ever put such an idea into that cynical head of yours?”

“Chance,” he said.  “But you are not irrevocably in love.  You are ignorant of what love can really mean.  Only he who understands it—­and who has suffered through it—­can ever teach you.  And you will never be satisfied until he does."’

“Are you very wise concerning love, Jose?” she asked, laughing.

[Illustration:  “‘Don’t do it, Valerie!’”]

“Perhaps.  You will desire to be, too, some day.  A good school, an accomplished scholar.”

“And the schoolmaster?  Oh!  Jose!”

They both were laughing now—­he with apparent pleasure in her coquetry and animation, she still a little confused and instinctively on her guard.

Rita came strolling over, a tiny cigarette balanced between her slender fingers: 

“Stop flirting, Jose,” she said; “it’s too near dinner time.  Valerie, child, I’m dining with the unspeakable John again.  It’s a horrid habit.  Can’t you prescribe for me?  Jose, what are you doing this evening?”

“Penance,” he said; “I’m dining with my family.”

“Penance,” she repeated with a singular look—­“well—­that’s one way of regarding the pleasure of having any family to dine with—­isn’t it, Valerie?”

“Jose didn’t mean it that way.”

Rita blew a ring from her cigarette’s glimmering end.

“Will you be at home this evening, Valerie?”

“Y-yes ... rather late.”

“Too late to see me?”

“No, you dear girl.  Come at eleven, anyway.  And if I’m a little late you’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

“No, I won’t,” said Rita, crossly.  “You and I are business women, anyway, and eleven is too late for week days.  I’ll wait until I can see you, sometime—­”

“Was it anything important, dear?”

“Not to me.”

Querida rose, took his leave of Valerie and Rita, went over and made his adieux to his host and the others.  When he had gone Rita, standing alone with Valerie beside the tea table, said in a low voice: 

“Don’t do it, Valerie!”

“Do—­what?” asked the girl in astonishment.

“Fall in love.”

[Illustration:  “Ogilvy stood looking sentimentally at the two young girls.”]

Valerie laughed.

“Do you mean with Querida?”

“No.”

“Then—­what do you mean?”